From FIRE to IRIS: How One Enterprise Rebuilt Its Entire 1099 Process

The IRS's retirement of the FIRE system isn't just a technical upgrade — for enterprise finance teams, it's a forcing function to re-examine how 1099 compliance gets done.

In this candid fireside chat, an enterprise finance leader joins Gordon Walsh, Avalara's 1099 & W-9 Senior Product Solution Consultant, and IOFM’s Mark Brousseau to share the unfiltered story of how their organization got ahead of the change: the internal audit that kicked things off, the process gaps IRIS exposed, the technology decisions they wrestled with, and how they rebuilt their 1099 workflow from the ground up to be fully prepared for the 2027 filing season — and whatever comes next.

If you're a VP of Accounts Payable, Controller, or Tax Director trying to figure out what the FIRE to IRIS change means for your organization — and you'd rather hear it from a peer who's already in the weeds — this session is for you.

You'll hear firsthand:

• What triggered the decision to act
• How they assessed their existing systems and identified the gaps IRIS exposed
• What alternative solutions they evaluated and how they made the final call
• The process and technology changes they made to prepare
• Practical advice for organizations that are still figuring out where to start

Come ready to benchmark your own readiness — and leave with a clear plan of action.

Mark Brousseau
President, Brousseau & Associates 

Over the past 30 years, Mark Brousseau has established himself as a thought leader on accounts payable, accounts receivable, payments and document automation.   A popular speaker at industry conferences and on webinars and podcasts, Brousseau advises prominent end-users and solutions and services providers on how to use automation to improve document- and payments-driven business processes.  Brousseau has chaired numerous educational conferences and has served on several industry committees and boards.  He resides in Center City Philadelphia with his wife and three sons.

Gordon Walsh
1099 & W-9 Senior Product Solution Consultant, Avalara

Gordon Walsh is Avalara's 1099 & W-9 Senior Product Solution Consultant — and the person enterprise teams turn to when 1099 compliance gets complicated. He spent nearly a decade as a high school history teacher and coach before pivoting into the world of consulting and human capital management. For the past several years, he has specialized in vendor and contractor process management, helping organizations build scalable compliance architectures across their end-to-end 1099 and W-9 workflows. Gordon is known for making complex regulatory changes approachable and for meeting finance teams where they are — whether they're filing 500 forms or 50,000.